After representing Massachusetts in the United States Senate for over 26 years, Senator John Kerry is leaving for the big leagues: the Obama administration’s Secretary of State.

According to Scituate High School World History teacher, Mr. Brogna, John Kerry has “a ridiculous amount of experience- he’s been in congress forever, and he’s especially been on the foreign relations committee for a long time, so he really knows his stuff.” In politics, as in anywhere else, he might not have been chosen just for this reason. Brogna said “maybe Obama’s looking for more support from Congress, and by bringing a staunch congressman to the Executive branch, that’s what he’s doing”, not to mention the fact that this could be “payback for his years of service to the Democratic party.”

The fact that this position opened up to begin with bears the question, what’s up with Hillary? Why did she quit? There is a significant buzz on many political blogs that Ms. Clinton is planning on running for president in 2016. There was even a USA Network 6-hour television miniseries which aired this past summer, called “Political Animals”, starring Sigourney Weaver as a “character that’s very obviously modeled on Hillary Clinton”, which intends for its principal character to resign her secretary of state position in order to run for president in the next election. Clearly, it’s impossible to deny the blatant media pressure for a second presidential run from Clinton in 2016.

Despite the buzz, Brogna said he doesn’t “think that she has further political ambitions” because “the things that have gone on over the last four years kind of may make it much more difficult to run in the future.”

Aside from the executive hoopla, Massachusetts has a larger problem: who will fill this now unoccupied Senate seat? After last November’s heated race between Elizabeth Warren and former incumbent Scott Brown, who will be the candidates in the coming special election?

Well, first things first: As of last Wednesday, Governor Deval Patrick appointed William M. Cowan, his former chief of staff, as interim senator to take on the senatorial duties in Kerry’s place until the special election, scheduled for June 25. Traditionally, these interim senators win their party’s nomination when it comes time to vote. But Brogna said that Patrick had announced “he did not want to put somebody in there that would later would want to run for the office, he just wanted a placeholder for now”, which is considered admirable by all, sans the Democratic Party, who would have an advantage come the special election if their candidate had already been presiding in the interim position.

What does this mean for the Democratic ticket? Former Massachusetts senator, Scott Brown of Wrentham, is the predicted Republican candidate. Scituate High School junior James Robotham said “Scott Brown has a good chance of winning because… he has a good amount of forward momentum from the campaign so that’ll get him there. People remember him from this last election. Even though he lost, he’s still in people’s minds. I think that makes him have a greater chance than someone trying to get off the ground running for this seat.”

So is there even a question? According to a recent Boston Globe article, there is. Globe writers Frank Phillips and Michael Levenson wrote that “Reached by the Globe Friday, Brown immediately hung up the phone, saying he was too busy to talk.A prominent member of his finance committee, who did not want to be quoted by name, said he had not heard from Brown since the November election.”

In Brown’s stead, Representative Stephen Lynch may win the Republican nomination. Phillips and Levenson’s article said that his recent fundraising efforts led to $800,000 in his war chest. However, he will not announce whether he’s running until this week, which begs the question of who the Democrats have in store.

The general consensus leans toward House Representative Edward Markey, who possesses not just a whopping $3.1 million in campaign funding, but the support of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

While Markey has almost 30 years of seniority over Lynch, the recent election of Elizabeth Warren may have outraged conservative Massachusetts voters enough to up their game, making this election impossible to predict. Only time will tell who will be representing Massachusetts in the coming months in Washington.